Last Saturday night my wife and I had our housewarming party. It’s been about 4 months since we moved in, but with getting settled, crazy projects, and other stuff going on in life, we finally got around to having the party just now. Overall, it was a good time; minus a few minor details.

My dad showed up around 11am. I had invited him the week earlier, but I really didn’t expect him to show. I’m super-glad that he did though. Not only is dad a lot of fun to be around: He’s super useful as well. I was able to get a hell of a lot of stuff done before the party, that I probably wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Many thanks to dad!

Bill and Amanda were the first to show up to the actual party. I was a little upset they didn’t bring their XBox360 and Rock Star. We spent some time at their place the week before, and had a great time with that. I even had my buddy Austin bring his drum seat and sticks just for it. Oh well.

Chris and Kiel came after that, then Shandyn and Eric, Greg and his wife Nevin, my buddy Matt, then it gets nuts.

My workout partner Tony came with his wife Mardi. They got us a bottle of Johnny Walker Green Label. I was pretty stoked about it, as the picture shows:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t also show the picture of Tony’s wife Mardi, with my wife, Melissa:

I was really stoked that Greg made it out. I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel like I could talk with that dude for days. We’re sorta on the same wavelength with tech stuff. Outside, but sorta in …

My buddy Austin showed up with his girlfriend Jen. They’re easily some of the coolest people I know. Austin was the best man at my wedding. I’ve known him since the 6th grade. He’s a nutbag, and he’s a Death Metal drummer. We used to rock out in industrial parks when we were underage. Awesome times… Jen is pretty much the female version of him. I guess it could also said that he’s the male version of her?

Taylor and Jason made it out as well. They’re a lot of fun to hang with. The only time I’ve ever been maced was hanging out with Jason. You know you’ve had a full night when local cops are telling you how to deal with a face full of mace. That reminds me, I’m supposed to be working on their website.

Of course we were all blessed with the presense of the amazingly talented Bender . I give that guy shit all the time, and I plan to continue. Bender usually tells a joke for us when we’re in a social setting with alcohol. So, after a few rounds, we started chanting ‘Bender’, and demanded either a joke, or shotgun a beer. Bender chose to shotgun Coors Light. Gross. Anyway, I should give him credit for some of the work he’s doing for an upcoming project of mine, Florida Death Metal.

Here are a few more candid shots of the good times:

That one is Melissa’s sister Megan, Kristina, Lisa, and Melissa. The following is a good one of Krista’s baby, Kaydon:

That’s a really good segway to the next part of the story. I had a moderate amount of alcohol to drink that night. However, I guess I didn’t know exactly how much I had.

To say little of it, I had too much. I wound up very sick the next morning., incredibly sick. Austin thought it’d be funny to talk smack about it all, and throw stuff at me. That super sucked, and I wound up starting the worst round of vomiting that I’ve ever had. I even punched a hole in the wall next to the bathroom. Melissa was pretty pissed about it all, so I’ll have to fix it.

I spent all Sunday either throwing up, or sleeping. It was a total waste of the day. Melissa was awesome and stayed around to take care of me. It’s a shame that I allowed myself to get that sick, but it’s great she was around to help me get out of it all.

I shouldn’t let that overshadow how much of a good time I had the night before. There was a great collection of the some of best friends that I’ve had the opportunity to every have.

So a whole bunch of us got together and had a few drinks, a few laughs, and made a lot of good memories. It was really good to see everyone. I’m reminded of why I work so much, and why I love being alive. I have the best friends and family I could ask for.

Crazy times, crazy times …

I checked my bank account this weekend and found my host, A2Hosting, had charged me for a year’s worth of hosting earlier than I expected. I was initially upset, but after some digging, I found that they had tried to contact me before hand.

Well, I canced my account and moved to a cheaper host anyways. I guess it really pays to keep up with even your most obscure email accounts, just in case you have something important going there!

The site has been down for a few days while I make the migration. Of course, it’s been tough to complete, since the world hasn’t slowed down for me to get things done. I’m still working on getting all of the content back up, so if you’re favorite content isn’t around, don’t despair: I’m getting it.

I had the opportunity tonight to hang out with everyone at the Crooked Bayou for Florida Creatives . Most of the regulars showed, plus some newer folks, and some not-so-new but not-so-veteran peeps as well. It’s usually pretty easy to have a good time at the Bayou, but Florida Creatives is really awesome.

It’s funny how I started going to networking events a while back in order to meet people to further my career. I suppose that’s still a possibility, but these days I go because I geniuinely enjoy the company of the characters I get to talk to. I can’t say enough good things about all the guys I get to see every couple weeks.

I can try however:

So, I’d like to buy a beer for Chis , Erik , Gregg , Al , Ryan , John , Greg , and yes, even Bender. I should buy a beer for a few more of y’all, but those are the first few honkies I can think of.

I also had the oppotunity to meet a few guys from a really young startup, Dyverse . It’s neat to see the ambition of people who are willing to lay a lot on the line, to get where they want to be. John looks a lot like a younger version of Sterling, which might be a good thing for him.

Speaking of startups, I had the great opportunity to meet Gabriel Chapman, CEO for the locally started Talent Database . Talent Database is a great idea with tons of potential. I was thoroughly impressed with the humble nature of a man behind something with such promise. I guess it reinforces my egalitarian view of what the world should be.

So, this being the ‘Thanksgiving’ edition of Florida Creatives, I suppose I should mention what I’m grateful for: Having a Florida Creatives to go to. Thanks to all of you who keep it going.

For a few weeks I’ve known that the Orlando Improv was might be about to close. They were facing a few issues that they were trying to overcome to stay in their current location. But there were a few issues why they might have to relocate. My wife swore me to secrecy about it, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. Today however, I noticed my buddy Alex had the story on his own site. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to be beaten on the story, that I felt I had the heads up on.

Figures.

The story is that the new owner of the property the Improv leases, Cameron Kuhn, had agreed to provide a liquor license to the Improv as incentive to stay in the largely vacant historic Church Street district. The day before their existing liquor license was due to expire, Cameron reneged on his side of the bargain. Corporate management for the Improv decided to vacate the location, and sue for breach of contract.

Here’s where it gets interesting…

When the story hit the news today (dammit), Cameron decided to change the locks on the building to effectively lock the Improv out of their leased space. The only reasons I can come up with as to why he would do such an obviously dumb move, is

1.) Bullying - perhaps he thought he could scare Improv management out of a lawsuit.

2.) Collateral - Maybe Cameron thought if he removed Improv imployees immediately, he might be able to steal some valuable property of theirs, and use it as leverage against any possible lawsuite.

3.) Spite - The most auspicious of all possible reasons. Cameron might just be mad at the thought of being sued over something he thinks he has the right to do.

My good friend, was recently promoted to at the Improv after a debacle with the former GM (**details removed upon request**). That’s another story entirely. WFTV talked to her about it for their 11pm broadcast It’s always cool to be interviewed, I guess.

I called her after the broadcast to let her know they spelt her name wrong. She was typical about it, but she did mention how she won. The original locks are back in place, and they might just turn the space into a haunted house until they’re required by law to leave.

So, you might just have a downtown haunted house to go to this year! I guess there’s always some silver lining to be had.

Here’s what still frustrates me about this: Why would a developer who’s known to be broke right now, evict a stable tenant from a property that isn’t producing stable tenants!!?!!??!? Furthermore, Orlando needs steady downtown entertainment to keep people coming, and push business downtown .I can’t imagine why someone with such a vested interest in downtown Orlando (something over $50 million) would do anything to sabatoge that.

Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. All of the local news stations have it out for Cameron, so he may wind up in a similiar situation to what Lou Perlman faced before him. It’s unbelievable how people with so much to lose self-destruct in the most obsurd ways.

UPDATE October 17, 2007:

Upper Improv Orlando management has made a decision on where to move to. I’m under oath to not say where. However, I will say it’s in a more ‘touristy’ area of town

Last weekend, Derek and I were working on finishing a product for alpha release.

We were at our deadline, so we had to work as long as it took to get the product out.

That meant we weren’t able to watch UCF’s first game against NC State.

We were quite dismayed at the prospect of missing out on our Alma Mater’s season opener.

Enter an unnammed friend of ours, who streamed the event from his TV so we could check it out ourselves, as we worked. I’d like to publicly thank him, but I’m not sure if I should. Anyways, thanks anonymous friend!

Last night, Chris and I went to the local web developer meetup group. There’s always a mix of folks at those events. The hardcore guys stayed around a while later than we had originally planned, but the talk was great.

The topics were varied. Subjects like iMIS integration, LISP for AJAX, new time-sensitive transport protocols, and general business stuff. It’s always a good time. Plus, I’m a big believer in the local tech crowd here. There’s some amazing stuff going on around here, so it’s great to get everyone together to talk about it.

Chris and I also met up at the B&S Local Market for the linkmind event there at 8:00am this morning. It was much of the usual suspects. Alex , Ryan , John , Chris , another Chris , and I were there. Greg even made it out there, which was really cool. A local newspaper columnist, Etan , made it to the event as well. Anything that happens at 8 in the morning on a Friday has better be good, and the likemind events always are.

It was really interesting to hear the things some of the guys had to talk about. Alex discussed his recent success exposing poor customer service at Spirit Airlines (google “Spirit Air”, you’ll be impressed). Etan, being a tech reviewer, had some interesting things to say about the new iPhone. John is always fascinating to listen talk about the local business scene.

Overall, both events were a great time. The exposure to people like us is a great thing. There are far too many socially-inept geeks out there. That’s the sort of thing that’s slowing down tech culture in the world.

So, kudos to those who are running these events that bring us all together. It really helps everyone.